STIRRINGS w/ Madelaine Ley – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to Season One of the STIRRINGS Podcast. Alongside music from her father, Bruce Ley, Madelaine Ley explains what being a "philosopher of technology, spiritual ecologist, and contemplative artist" means to her, and invites you into intellectually promiscuous conversation with a chit-chatty warmth and some poetry.

Welcome to the first pairing of the STIRRINGS guest episodes. First up, we have Carina Lyall with Gustavo Nogueira.

Carina speaks on spiritual ecology, fostering relationships over time, and stepping out of urgency. Her provocation: "How much do you need to know?" has been ringing in my ears since the interview.

To close off, my father (Bruce Ley) offers a musical interpretation of "Bees in the Garden". Showing, again, how many ways we can communicate our relationship with the more-than-human world.

More on Carina's wonderful work here: https://www.carinalyall.com/en/home

Subscribe for episodes here: https://madelaineley.substack.com

More about podcast host, Madelaine Ley, here; work with Madelaine: wayseeing.ca

Welcome to the first pairing of the STIRRINGS guest episodes. First up, we have Carina Lyall with Gustavo Nogueira.

In this episode, temporality researcher, Gustavo Nogueira, reminds us that we might embody the many versions of Time, rather than be limited to the block-filled, linear time of the google calendar.

To close off, my father (Bruce Ley) offers a some rhythmic, steady, but nonetheless soulful blues piano. Perhaps, this is another version of Time.

More on Gust's wonderful work here: https://www.temporalitylab.com

Subscribe for episodes here: https://madelaineley.substack.com

More about podcast host, Madelaine Ley, here; work with her through wayseeing.ca

Minna’s work reminds us that there are so many ways of knowing. Separating them, creating hierarchies, and ultimately controlling our myriad knowledges is an example of what Minna calls superiorism. We’ll talk about all this in the episode, as well as her kaleidoscopic method (or “non-method method”) and how 2026 is the year of the midwife.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish author and cultural critic, and formerly senior fellow and programme chair at The New Institute. Her books Feminist Freedom: An African Vision (Cornell University Press 2026) and Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone (Bloomsbury 2020) have been translated into multiple languages. She was the creative director of the short film Black Feminism and the Polycrisis, which won a 2024 Lovie Award. A leading voice of contemporary feminism, she has drawn over a million readers to her multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan.com which she ran from 2010 – 2025. She now has a fantastic Substack, Kaleido: The Europatriarchy Files.

As for the music, my dad (Bruce Ley) and I picked an abstract piano meditation for this conversation. It dips into familiar territories from time to time, but never quite settles. The movement and hopping around feels kaleidoscopic.

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Work with Madelaine on technology ethics through WaySeeing Ethics at wayseeing.ca

Tom offers one of the most hopeful ideas I’ve heard. He tells us that, really, it’s not that hard for us to come back to ourselves as creatures of the planet. All we need is a few days out in the woods, moors, mountains, whatever, perhaps with some added fasting, and… boom, we can hear the spirits of the land again and can feel the breath of the planet. A few days isn’t such a bad turn around time, is it?

Tom is the director of Feral Angels Press - a radical small press in the form of a sociocratically-governed enterprise, an editor with the poetry magazine, Clarion, and offers one-on-one poetry mentoring. In the episode you'll hear Tom's poems: I Pray for the Dark and Blue Flowers, which aren’t yet out in a book. But you kind find more of this poems in his published collections here.

As for the music, my dad (Bruce Ley)and I chose this whimsy ambient guitar piece that pulls on your soulstrings. I suggest closing your eyes to the music and entering your inner-mythic-poetic landscape for a little explore.

AI is all the rage, but it's time to reintroduce robots into the mainstream technology conversation. The market for humanoid robots is projected to reach 5 trillion by 2050. Geopolitical races are intensifying. Elon won’t stop talking about Optimus 3. And while I hate to admit it, he has a tendency to make things happen (in his own chaotic way). Corporations and governments are in a rush to be the first to cash in, but most citizens’ ideas of robots doesn’t go beyond The Terminator or a mechanic butler.

In this episode, I share how a troubling vision urged me to research the ethics of robotics, how our increasingly predictable lives make introducing robots easier, and how you might disturb the system by becoming illegible and unpredictable within it.

Show Notes:

- Nora Bateson’s Combining. Keep an eye out for her upcoming book, Belly, and watch her recent interview with filmmaker Katie Teague (highly recommend all interviews by Katie!).

- Bayo Akomolafe’s writing, Just Say No.

- Read Wendell Berry’s full Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front here

- Madelaine's poem on robots and babies

- Music by Bruce Ley

Work with Madelaine on technology ethics through WaySeeing Ethics at wayseeing.ca

Báyò Akómoláfé doesn’t speak of rules or external frameworks when he talks about ethics. Poetic and provocative, he speaks of a yearning, longing, and being spirited away. Beautifully paired with Laura François's episode, who speaks of systems-feeling, Báyò also questions how systems-thinking tends towards control and objectivity. And, like me, is suspicious of value-driven endeavours.

For this episode, my dad and I chose an atonal piece. We foist this uncomfortable piece upon you with love, hoping you might be jostled. Use it, if you will, as a 6 minute practice in awkward discomfort.

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Báyò Akómoláfé (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, post-humanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of three books, Selah, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home, and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak.

Báyò is the founder of The Emergence Network, and has taught at institutions including Middlebury College, Schumacher College, and UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute. He is the Hubert H. Humphrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Macalester College (USA), the Inaugural W.E.B. Du Bois Scholar in Residence at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (USA), the Distinguished Fellow of Instituto Toriba (Brazil), an Ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and a member of the Club of Rome.

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If you’re interested in how this relates to technology ethics, check out my work with WaySeeing Ethics

Laura François and I talk about moving from fear-based motivation to awe-inspired change, systems-feeling in addition to systems-thinking, trusting your heebie-jeebies, and moving from a days of prediction to a life of noticing.

For the music, my father and I chose a piece called “Distant Thunder”. This spacey meditative vibe should entice you into feeling into the atmospheric weather systems.

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Laura François is a socio-environmental impact strategist, facilitator, and systems thinker with over a decade of experience designing emotionally resonant interventions at the intersection of sustainability, creativity, and collective change. She is the director of Awe Exchange, a nonprofit laboratory pioneering awe-based changemaking as an antidote to siloed, linear thinking about our climate emergency. Through Awe Exchange, she is developing Systems Feeling — a felt, relational approach to systems thinking that helps changemakers metabolize complexity, navigate uncertainty, and lead with wonder.

Laura is also a co-founder of anewkind, a studio supporting businesses and organizations to ground their impact in regeneration. Her work spans global campaigns, cross-cultural facilitation, and the development of curricula that translate sustainability frameworks into lived, collective action. She co-founded The Spaceship, a program supporting first-time impact entrepreneurs, and served as Country Director of Fashion Revolution in Malaysia and Singapore.

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Learn more about my technology ethics work here: WaySeeing.ca

In this poor excuse for a “how to” episode, Madelaine offers three helpful phrases for something you've already experienced: Agenda-Free Presence, Radical Hanging Out, and Creative Loitering.

In times when so many of us feel that our value is determined by our productivity and professional output, it’s a rare revolt to just be without a focus on doing. When we do this together, there's space for the gifts of recognition to flow and these intimate moments are irreplicable.

For the music this week, my dad and I chose a movement called “Moon in the Morning” from his String Quartet, The Country Life. Something about this track pulls softly at my guts, gently insisting that I listen. I encourage you to offer it your agenda-free presence and let it drift you places without your expectations leading the way.

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Learn more about Madelaine here; and her tech ethics consultancy here.